The game of chess calls for shrewd analytical skills of positions coupled with calculations to gain control over the game. It is essential that good positional play should be entwined with calculations of moves and deployment of effective tactics assessing the overall position in the board. Having good control over the board positionally will not guarantee you any success over the opponent as long as you do not entwine the tactics effectively to gain control over the board. It is in this context that one should strive to be a good allround player instead of concentrating either only on his tactical skills or in positional factors.

In the following example, you will notice that having good positions will not lead to success as one silly error caused without giving importance to the opponent’s pieces, and due to paucity of time, ended up in losing the game from the winning position.

This is the position after 27 moves. It is the turn of the white to move now.

White is a good player in positional chess and now, a cursory look at the board indicates that white has an extra pawn than black. The game proceeded as follows :

28. Rc1 h6
29. Rc8+ Kh7
30. Rc4 Qe5
31. Rf4 Qc4

White, using his skills on positional chess has been making satisfactory progress. The position after 31 moves is given hereunder:

Not only is the white rook at f4 supporting the pawn at f2, the queen in b3 is threatening the black pawns at e6 and f7 and blocking their movement.

32. Kh2 ….. Another good move from White in an attempt to develop his pawns with King’s assistance.

Chess is a thinking game. It is a fair game in that the player is responsible for the fate of the game and there is no other thing intervention in the game either in the form of luck or in the form of chance. One thing that can be said to be a chance or luck is nothing but the mistake of the opponent. In general, the player needs to think, analyze, visualize, plan, decide and execute a series of moves applying tactics and strategies to say “checkmate” to the opponent.

If children were taught this noble game at their tender age and encouraged to play the game, they will perform better in their academic career and outshine others – this is a finding of a research study. Many countries have introduced the game of chess as part of their school curriculum and have made it a subject or game that each child should learn and play regularly.

How the game of chess will help children perform well in mathematics? Read on….

One of the important subjects that a child is taught in his schooling days is the subject of mathematics. This is a very important subject and one needs to master it to have a better score in the examinations and also to pursue higher studies.

The importance of the subject of mathematics is that it cannot be learned by memorizing it by heart. If you are learning a subject like history or literature, then it is easy to memorize the lessons, reproduce the things memorized in the examination hall, get enough marks to promote to the next grade. You can safely forget about that subject, because history is not going to help you lead a life unless you want to choose to become a historian [...] Continue Reading…

Not next year, when it will be either Anand or Topalov! But how far later?

In one of the 4 myths (depending on what you believe) on the game of chess, I held the view that we have not yet reached the stage where we expect a machine (read computer) to become World Chess Champion, notwithstanding that one win of DeepBlue against Garry Kasparov in 1997. But I left a question mark against that conclusion as I was not sure how long this state of affairs would hold, seeing the speed of progress in computer technology. More powerful processors, larger memory chips, and sophisticated software to utilize the hardware advances are hitting the road every year.

This prompts me to take an inventory of relative strengths and weaknesses between man and his robotic creation and try to understand how they are placed against each other in respect of our area of interest – the game of chess.

To make such a comparison, we must select the parameters on which to base our study. I thought of the following – it will be great if you can suggest some more, with your analysis on those aspects of chess in lines similar to what I tried. Another point – men can make ten identical “Deep Blue” computers but no two human players are alike. So when comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses, I am considering only the best human chess players in the following comparisons.

Chess Strategy:
Simply put, chess strategy is a plan of action. As discussed in What is chess strategy? Isn’t a chess game all chess tactics?, a strategy may be formulated even before the start of a game and may continue well into the end game. Strategy encompasses not just the game but the players as well – we examined this [...] Continue Reading…

In Chess Tactics: The King’s role in attack – part 1, you saw how one King, while apparently running away from opponent’s checks, was actually moving towards the enemy camp to assist his own pieces for trapping the opponent’s King. By the time the opponent realized what was happening, it was too late to do anything about it.

The three games we have chosen for this article is slightly different from the aforesaid theme. Here a King deliberately steps out of his castled position and marches towards the enemy King to provide support to his own attacking pieces. Of course this was possible because though opponent’s heavy pieces were still on board, the pawn positions severely restricted their free movement and the attacking King deftly maneuvered through the crowded position.